Prohibiting men with certain characteristics from being ordained to the priesthood is nothing new in church discipline. More than 40 years ago, when I was still in the seminary, church law laid down a number of such impediments. According to the theology of the time, the office of the priesthood req
From Our Archives
Posted inFrom Our Archives
A Quintessential Jesuit
The Denver Post reported that a few hours before he died, Jim Sunderland, S.J., asked his family and friends to put on his shoes, because I want to walk into heaven. Just like him: a flinty realism, a bit of humor and an undying faith. A Visitation sister, his friend for over 40 years, wrote, "
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Chinas New Role
I seems inevitable that the People’s Republic of China and the Holy See will eventually establish formal diplomatic relations. Whether this takes months or years, both China and the Vatican have reached an understanding of their mutual interests. China, for its part, seems intent on resolving
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Evolution and Christian Faith
On July 7, 2005, The New York Times published on its Op Ed page an essay by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, O.P., the archbishop of Vienna, entitled: Finding Design in Nature. In it the cardinal stated:…ever since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was more
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Guantnamo Journey
"Our daily Mass was at the center of all we did,” said one of the Christian activists who set out for an 11-day pilgrimage to Cuba during the Advent of 2005. It was undertaken as a prayerful protest of the treatment of prisoners held incommunicado at the Guantánamo military base. Those w
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Where Are the Catholic Environmentalists?
The sister was wrong, I thought. Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., a theologian and professor at Fordham University in New York, was talking to Catholic school teachers about ways to integrate environmental concerns into classroom lessons. Personally, I considered environmental concern a white privilege. I
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Getting Catholic Schools Off the Dole
For 20 years, West Philadelphia’s St. Francis de Sales School was on the diocesan dole. Like many inner-city schools, it could not support itself with tuition and parish funds. Its principal, Sister Constance Marie Touey, I.H.M., feared a decade ago that St. Francis de Sales would suffer the f
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Zambia and the Millennium Development Goals: An Interview with Peter Henriot
How is Zambia doing in relation to the millennium development goals established by the United Nations?Zambia has registered some improvement in the last few years. For example, it is likely that universal primary education will be available by the target date of 2015, and that it will include at lea
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Higher Standards
Five years ago last October, the superior general of the Jesuits, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, delivered a historic address at Santa Clara University in California, urging that the promotion of justice should have a central place in Jesuit higher education. Father Kolvenbach was not simply innovating. Ten
Posted inFrom Our Archives
Aquinas in Africa
Recently I taught theology in South Africa, at St. Joseph’s Theological Institute in Pietermaritzburg. Hot and humid in late summer, 50 miles from the Indian Ocean, Pietermaritzburg in the state of KwaZulu-Natal is the city where in 1893 Gandhi was thrown off a train because he was not white,